Drivers of vehicles, especially inexperienced drivers, are most likely to encounter difficulties in backing-in their car or parallel parking among multiple vehicle driving operations. Here, the backing-in operation represents for example a rearward movement of a vehicle for the purpose of parking the vehicle in a parking stall, a garage or the like. In the light of the foregoing, one of technologies for facilitating a vehicle driving at an event of parking is disclosed in JP2005-067565A (US2005-0049766A1). According to this technology, in a condition where a target parking frame is displayed on a display screen, and the target parking frame is set at a desired position in response to an operation of a touch panel by an operator, an electronic control unit (ECU) automatically controls steering of a vehicle so that the vehicle parks within the target parking frame.
However, according to this technology, an operation for moving the target parking frame over the display screen is not easy and setting the target parking frame is a time-consuming operation.
For example, in cases where a vehicle moves in an angled rearward direction to be parked in a parking stall, a garage or the like, an initial position, and an initial orientation of a target parking frame, which is first displayed on the display screen, affect on setting the target parking frame. For example, in order to set the target parking frame at a desired position, it is necessary to adjust a rotation angle of the target parking frame as well as vertical and lateral directions thereof. When the operator attempts to set the target parking frame at the desired position by using the display screen, an image of a rear environment of the vehicle is displayed in a planar manner, i.e., in a two-dimensional system, on the display screen. This may cause a difference between the rear environment image and the rear environment, which is visually observing with a feeling of distance. Such a difference and a reverse in the right and left direction complicate directions of the target parking frame and make it difficult to perform an operation of setting the target parking frame at the position desired by the operator.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a target parking position setting apparatus, which facilitates for an operator to understand a direction of a target parking position to be moved or rotated in response to an input operation of the operator.